


The Sock Dilemma

by monday7112



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Community: fandom_fridays, Community: help_haiti, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-27
Updated: 2011-03-27
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:44:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monday7112/pseuds/monday7112
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Harry is a sock, Ron is distraught and Hermione...doesn't crack the case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sock Dilemma

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://callie-828.livejournal.com/profile)[**callie_828**](http://callie-828.livejournal.com/) who purchased it during the Lightning Round II: V-Gift Boogaloo over at [](http://community.livejournal.com/help_haiti/profile)[**help_haiti**](http://community.livejournal.com/help_haiti/) (yes, a year ago. Yes. This fic was a long time in coming...) and requested Harry/Ron, preferably where they are working a case and Ron is the one who figures it out. I managed to incorporate exactly half of that prompt. Thank you so much for making the donation and I am so sorry this took so long, even if you said to take my time.

  
Harry slammed shut the drawer to one of his dressers and cursed, looking around for his wand. Picking it up, he gave it a wave and muttered “accio socks”. Unfortunately, the only result was every sock in his room descending upon him like a horde of locusts and burying him. Cursing again, he fought his way out from underneath the pile and then dug through it, looking for a matching pair. No such luck. He appeared to have one of every sock imaginable and for the first time he thought he understood Dumbledore’s wish for a pair of socks. The thought brought a brief smile to his face before he sighed and sat down on his bed, glancing at the clock. He had less than 5 minutes to get to the Ministry of Magic or he would be late for his meeting with Kingsley. “Great, just great,” he muttered.

 _On this morning of all mornings._

The sound of the shower in the bathroom quieted, indicating Ron had finally finished. Maybe he had a pair that Harry could borrow. They shared almost everything else, anyway. Why not a pair of clean socks? “Ron!” Harry shouted. A quick wave of his wand sent the mismate socks flying back to their storage place in a laundry basket in his closet. He stood up and made his way to the door of his bedroom. “Ron, do you have a pair of socks I can borrow?”

“Check my drawer,” Ron yelled back, the sound of his voice muffled by the bathroom door. Harry traipsed across the hallway into Ron’s room and flipped open the drawer in which Ron kept all of his socks. It was in complete disarray and Harry found he had no more luck there than he’d had in his own room. “Wonderful,” he mumbled, turning around to make his way back to his room but stopped short. Ron was leaning against the doorway, a towel slung loosely around his hips.

“Find a pair?” he inquired. Harry, taken slightly off guard by the sight of his best friend— _and only his best friend_ —standing mostly naked in front of him, took a step backward. He coughed and tried to ignore the fact that he had gone half-hard at the sight. One of Ron’s more irritating habits was his lack of need for clothing. He often went wandering around the apartment in just a pair of jeans or with his robe hanging open revealing whichever pair of boxers he happened to be wearing that day.

Harry growled. “No,” he said, pushing past Ron and back into his own room. Ignoring all the thoughts that accompanied the knowledge that Ron was in the next room wearing only a towel—probably less at this point—Harry glanced at the clock. Two more minutes and he had to be out the door. His eyes scanned the room, hoping that a pair of socks would just miraculously appear on the top of his dresser when his gaze landed on a set of cufflinks. “I don’t _need_ a pair of cufflinks,” he mumbled. “What I really need is a…”

The fact that he was a wizard, and one not half-bad at Transfiguration at that, suddenly occurred to Harry and he walked over to the cufflinks. He didn’t need an actual pair of socks, only a reasonable facsimile there of and these…would work. He picked them up and then raised his wand, pointed it at the two items and began to recite the spell which would temporarily transform the unneeded cufflinks into the needed pair of socks. Just as he did so, a movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and his throat went dry. Ron had discarded the towel and was walking around his room with the door wide open, leaving nothing, absolutely nothing at all to Harry’s imagination.

 _Look away._

But he couldn’t. His eyes followed every move that Ron was making as Harry recited the incantation that would transform the cufflinks. Unfortunately for Harry, Ron chose the exact moment that he was finishing the spell to reach down and grab something off the floor, revealing his muscular arse to Harry’s more than willing eyes. So intent was Harry on watching Ron that he didn’t realize the hand holding his wand had dropped and it was no longer pointing at his cufflinks. Instead, it was pointed directly at his feet. A strange feeling of lightness and shapelessness came over him and as he realized what was happening, his arm began to shrink up. His wand fell to the ground, rolling underneath the nearby dresser and in the next second, everything went black.

Socks didn’t have eyes, after all.

If he’d still had a mouth, Harry would have cursed again. Bad didn’t even begin to cover the ridiculous predicament in which he now found himself.

* * *

“Harry?” he heard Ron calling. Automatically he tried to answer but stopped when he realized he didn’t have a mouth to open. It occurred to Harry that it was strange that he couldn’t see or talk but could still hear. The floor underneath him vibrated slightly—and feel.

Ron’s voice, standing directly beside him again called out “Harry?”

 _Look down Ron. Dammit look down! I’m right here._

“Must have apparated to the Ministry already then,” said Ron.

 _Anti-apparation spell on the house, Ron. You remember, the one that Hermione insisted on putting on in case any of Voldemort’s supporters decided to come after us? I can’t have just apparated to the Ministry!_

But Ron didn’t seem to be particularly in tune to Harry’s thoughts. The sound of his bedroom door shutting and Ron’s fading footsteps told Harry that Ron was on his way down the stairs and outside.

“To apparate,” Harry thought bitterly. “Because you can’t apparate from…”

The sound of rushing footsteps and the door to his room banging open announced that Ron had realized that Harry couldn’t have just apparated to work already. “HARRY!” Ron was shouting now. “HARRY? WHERE ARE YOU MATE?” Ron was clearly walking around the room now, looking in the closet, opening the window to peer outside, even lifting up the skirting on his bed to look under it. “If this is some kind of joke, I’m not finding it funny. We’re both going to be late for work. Don’t you have that meeting with Kingsley? Harry?”

Ron’s footsteps paused directly beside the pair of Harry socks. He kicked at them, moving Harry slightly but didn’t pick them up or otherwise connect that they might in some way be related to Harry’s disappearance. Ron’s footsteps again disappeared down the stairs.

 _Well I’m certainly not downstairs, Ron! Come on, you’re an auror. You can figure this out. I was in my bedroom. You would have seen me go downstairs. I must still be in the room! COME ON RON!_

Although Harry strained to hear, all was silent downstairs for a few minutes. Just as he thought that Ron must have concluded that he’d made it downstairs and out the door without being noticed and left for work without a second thought, Harry heard the faint sound of someone banging on the door downstairs followed by the screech of Hermione’s voice yelling, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN HARRY’S DISAPPEARED??!?”

The sound of two sets of footsteps making their way upstairs along with the familiar back and forth of Hermione and Ron bickering was comforting to Harry. “I mean, he was there and then he wasn’t. At first I thought he’d apparated—”

“He _can’t_ have apparated,” Hermione cut him off. “I put three separate anti-apparation charms on the place.”

“I _know_ ,” Ron responded, the frustration with Hermione mingling with his obvious concern over Harry. “Which is why I called you. I know he didn’t go downstairs. He just…vanished.”

 _Look on the floor._

“You must have just missed him Ron,” Hermione insisted as the door to his bedroom once again swung open.

 _Yes, you missed me Ron. I’m right in plain sight if you’d just stop a minute to look._

The floor was now fairly humming away with their footsteps as they made their way around Harry’s room. Hermione’s footsteps, slightly softer than Ron’s, circled the room in almost exactly the same pattern that Ron had followed earlier, from the closet to the window to underneath the bed. If Harry could have, he’d have smiled in spite of his plight. “He had to have gone downstairs and outside without you noticing. Have you contacted the ministry?”

 _He’d have seen me, Hermione. He was standing right there with…_

Harry forced his thoughts away from what Ron had—or rather, hadn’t—been wearing that had caused Harry to get into this situation in the first place.

“Of course, Hermione,” Ron growled. “I’m not a complete idiot in spite of what you may think.”

“I don’t think you’re an idiot,” Hermione countered, her voice tight. “I’m just asking the logical question. Is there any chance that he stopped somewhere on the way in this morning and just hasn’t made it there yet?”

Ron sighed. “He had an important meeting with Kingsley this morning. He wouldn’t just skip it.”

“Well he has to be here somewhere!” Hermione’s voice was now tinged with a hint of hysteria and she took a deep breath to calm herself.

 _RIGHT HERE!_

Harry marveled at just how frustrating it was to be able to hear and think but not see or speak.

“He’s not,” Ron said. “He’s just not…Hermione…” That was a definite crack in Ron’s voice.

 _I’M HERE!!!!!!!!!!!_

“Right,” Hermione said and there was a creaking of the bed springs as she settled herself onto the bed. “Okay, well…we’ve got to contact the Ministry then. If he didn’t leave on his own then the only logical conclusion is that someone forced him out.”

Harry could feel Ron’s incredulous look primarily because if he’d had eyes at that moment he’d have given her the same one.

 _He was across the hall, not more than 10 feet away. You think he wouldn’t have heard something?_

“I was just across the hall, Hermione!” Ron’s voice echoed his thoughts. “If I would have heard him go downstairs, I certainly would have heard if someone were kidnapping him.”

“It’s the only explanation, Ron,” Hermione rebutted. “He was here. He’s not now. He didn’t apparate—you didn’t hear that, plus he can’t have with the anti-apparation charms. He didn’t go downstairs and leave because he hasn’t made it to work yet. Someone had to have taken him.”

 _It’s not the only explanation._

“It’s not the only explanation,” Ron said.

 _Yes! Good Ron!_

“Okay,” Hermione said and her voice held the patronizing tone that Ron often complained about, especially in the difficult weeks and months following their break-up.

“She thinks I’m an idiot,” Ron had complained to Harry more than once.

“She doesn’t,” Harry had countered. “She just doesn’t know how not to be the smartest one in the room, you know? She means well…”

It had taken the two of them a lot of effort and time to work through the damage their relationship had done and repair their friendship.

“What’s another explanation, then?” Hermione continued, the note of patronization now carefully hidden.

“I don’t know,” Ron said. “It just doesn’t make sense that someone could have gotten in here without me hearing them.”

“When you eliminate the impossible,” Hermione quoted, “whatever remains, however improbable…”

“Must be the truth,” Ron replied. “Yeah, I know. And I’m just saying that we haven’t eliminated all possibilities yet so we should focus on something more probable.”

“We’re wasting time,” Hermione said. “We need to get the aurors out here now to see if they can find any traces. Whoever took him could be…”

“NOBODY TOOK HIM!” Ron fairly exploded. “You want to talk about eliminating the impossible, Hermione, we can cross kidnapping off the list. No one could have gotten into this house and gotten Harry away from here without me knowing.”

 _Now isn’t the time for an argument. Find me first. Then you can argue all you want._

“So I suppose a memory charm on you to keep you from remembering what happened is impossible, then?” Hermione countered.

 _Never mind. Argue with her Ron. Don’t waste the Ministry’s time on this._

If he still had cheeks, Harry’s would have been flaming at the thought of explaining to Kingsley exactly how he had managed to transfigure himself instead of the cufflinks into a pair of socks.

But it was clear from the silence in the room that Ron had unfortunately realized the merit of Hermione’s words. There was movement and the sound of Hermione’s knees hitting the ground near where Harry was lying, then rustling underneath the nearby dresser. He knew from the gasp she let out that she had found his wand a split second before she said, “Ron—look.”

The bed springs creeked as Ron sat down in the bed. “Have Kingsley send a team out here,” he said, then his voice barely audible, “Harry would never leave without his wand.”

* * *

As hard as he tried to stay awake, Harry found that it was too exhausting trying to keep straight the parade of footsteps and voices in and out of his room the entire day. Eventually the voices blended into a dull hum in the background and he nodded off to sleep. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out when he awoke to Kingsley’s commanding voice floating into the room from downstairs, telling Ron that they had aurors stationed out front. “It’ll probably be a good idea to have Hermione spend the night here too if you don’t mind,” he was saying, “so we can keep an eye on both of you. If this is what we suspect there’s every reason to believe that you and Hermione are also at risk.”

“I’m an auror,” Ron replied tightly. “I don’t need protection.”

 _Don’t be an idiot Ron. If someone was actually capable of getting through our security system and getting me, you don’t think they could get you too?_

“Standard procedure,” Kingsley said. “And I’m doing it whether you give your consent or not. Will Hermione be staying here, then?”

“Yes,” Ron said with a sigh. “Of course. She’s gone home to pack a bag. She’ll be back any minute.”

“Good. I don’t have to tell you that we’ve got our best team working on this.”

“No you don’t,” Ron countered. “Your best team is one man short at the moment.”

Kingsley sighed. “You’re right,” he returned. “And we’re going to find him.”

Harry nearly flushed with pride at the compliment. The sound of the front door opening was accompanied by Kingsley greeting the new arrival. “Hermione! Glad you’ve decided to stay here tonight. If Harry’s a target—”

“Then I probably am too,” Hermione agreed. “You don’t have to convince me, Kingsley. I’m already here aren’t I?”

 _Smart girl. At least Hermione isn’t trying to act like a hero._

The fact that neither of them were actually in any danger aside, Harry wasn’t pleased with the way Ron was acting in the face of what appeared to be neo-Voldemort activity.

“Indeed,” Kingsley responded warmly. “Try to get some sleep.”

The sound of a click followed by Ron’s heavy and Hermione’s softer footsteps on the stairs let Harry know that they were on their way up. The footsteps paused on the landing.

“You take my room,” Ron said to Hermione. His footsteps made their way toward Harry’s door.

“I’ll be fine in Harry’s,” Hermione said. It was obvious to Harry that she had followed Ron.

“You’ll be fine in mine,” Ron said, stopping and turning. “We don’t know how they got him away from here. I’m not risking you sleeping in there by yourself.”

Harry had to agree with Ron. If, you know, he was actually missing. Which he wasn’t.

“You think I can’t take care of myself?” Hermione bristled as they both walked into Harry’s bedroom.

“Bloody hell Hermione,” Ron replied. The bed creaked as he sank into it and although he couldn’t actually see Ron, Harry knew he was running his fingers through his hair and rubbing his face in exasperation. He’d seen him do it a million times when Hermione and Ron had been dating and they were having a disagreement. “You never could let me take care of you.”

Silence stretched between his two friends and Harry felt a sharp pang as he remembered the hopelessness of those first few years after they had defeated Voldemort; the difficulty he’d had in adjusting to life-after-the-prophecy. He’d been preparing to face Voldemort his entire life and he wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed or where to go once he had accomplished that task. He had fallen into a depression, made worse by the fact that the man he was in love with was dating his best friend. He had thrown himself into his relationship with Ginny thinking that if he just tried hard enough, he could love her _too_ and it wouldn’t hurt as much that Ron had chosen Hermione over him. A relationship built on a false premise like that couldn’t last, of course and eventually he and Ginny had split. She’d accepted a year-long teaching appointment in America and then stayed after it ended and married an American wizard she’d met during her time there. After Ginny left, Harry had fallen deeper into the depression but rather than deal with it head on, he instead chose to self-medicate. Alcohol—of the muggle variety—was his drug of choice.

He cringed as he remembered how far down the rabbit hole he had allowed himself to go. While he’d managed to hide it at first, eventually it caught up with him. He started missing work and when a prisoner escaped his custody during a routine transfer, he’d been suspended from his work at the Ministry. During that same time, things had started to deteriorate between Ron and Hermione and when Hermione had finally ended things between the two of them, Ron had moved in with Harry. With the understanding that only someone who had been through the same hell could have, Ron had eventually brought Harry up out of the darkness that was trying to consume him. Hermione hadn’t been around during that time. Harry had learned later that she had gone to spend time with Ginny, to get away from both of them and try to deal with her own grief over the end of her relationship with Ron.

 _Without Ron…_

His thoughts trailed off. Without either one of them, he wouldn’t still be alive but it had been Ron who had put the pieces back together when he’d fallen completely apart. He’d been back at the Ministry for a year now, on probationary status and his meeting with Kingsley this morning was to determine if the probation would be lifted and he would be returned to full auror status with no restrictions.

The fact that she hadn’t been there during that time was something that Hermione felt no small amount of guilt over. She’d apologized at least a dozen times for leaving him but he didn’t blame her. He knew she couldn’t be there because being there for him meant being around Ron and she had needed the break from him for her own sanity. Hermione and Ron were friends now, but it had been a long road and Harry was praying that the stress of his disappearance wouldn’t have them screaming at each other again.

The sound of the rain that had begun to fall was the only sound in the room for so long that Harry was just about to conclude that they’d both fallen asleep when Ron’s voice finally broke the silence.

“I haven’t even had a chance to tell him…” Ron began.

Suddenly Harry was all ears again.

 _Tell me what?_

“You’ll get the chance,” Hermione replied.

 _Tell. Me. What?_

“Still haven’t figured out how.”

 _How to say what?_

“You’ll figure it out.”

He hadn’t thought it was possible for something to be more frustrating than being a sock but apparently your two best friends discussing telling you some secret while you were in the room with them but unable to ask them what in the bloody hell they were talking about, in fact, was. He felt his temper beginning to rise.

 _Figure what out?_

“Yeah, because there’s a good way to tell him I’ve gone and messed up everything,” Ron replied. From the vibrations of the floor Harry could tell that he had stood up and walked over to the window.

 _Messed what things up, exactly?_

“What you are feeling isn’t going to mess everything up,” Hermione replied.

 _Wait…what? What feelings? Was Hermione implying…no. She can’t be. I must have misheard her._

“Nearly destroyed us,” Ron mumbled. The bed creaked again as Hermione stood up and her footsteps crossed the room to where Ron was standing.

 _But that certainly sounds like. No. No. You’re an idiot. If Ron had feelings for you, you would know._

“We were never going to work,” Hermione said gently.

Silence once again stretched between his two friends but Harry’s mind was anything but silent. It was fairly screaming at him at this point. The trouble was, it couldn’t agree with itself. Part of him was screaming that Ron had feelings for him while the other half was insisting that neither Ron nor Hermione had said any such thing.

 _But that’s certainly what it sounded like._

Ron was talking again so Harry forced his thoughts to quiet and strained to listen again. “If anything happens to him, Hermione…I was 10 feet away. I should have heard. I should have been able to stop it.”

“You’re not to blame for this, Ron.”

“Right,” Ron said. He cleared his throat. “Right. Well listen…we should try to sleep. Why don’t you head to my room then.”

“I’m fine in here.”

“I’ve already told you, I’m not letting you sleep in here by yourself.”

“Then don’t,” Hermione said. “But I’m sleeping in here.”

Ron sighed. “Fine,” he grumbled. “I’ll take the floor.”

All afternoon the aurors had been in and out of the room. Someone had catalogued the socks and taken his wand for testing but the Harry socks had been deemed unimportant and returned to their resting place on the floor. Harry felt Ron’s hand brush over him as he bent down to examine the socks. Although he was ostensibly a shapeless oblong piece of material, to Harry it felt as though Ron’s hand had skimmed lightly across his bare shoulder and trailed down his arm. It was the most bizarre sensation he’d ever experienced and yet it was nothing to the feeling of Ron’s hand encircling him as he lifted up the pair of socks.

Shock like an electric current went through Harry and once again he couldn’t help but think that actually, it was good at that moment that he was a sock because he could not have controlled his reaction to Ron if his life depended on it. If he could have, he would have groaned. Or moaned. Or fallen over completely. His entire body felt like it was on fire.

So consumed was Harry by Ron’s touch that he didn’t realize for a minute that Ron hadn’t just set him aside. Instead, he was staring intently at the socks, one finger running lightly along what felt to Harry like his forehead—exactly where his scar was.

“Hermione?” Ron said.

“Hmmm?” she responded. The bed creaked as she shifted. “What is it Ron?”

Harry forced his thoughts away from the feeling of his best friend caressing his forehead. Somewhere inside he realized that something important was potentially about to happen.

“This is the dresser you found Harry’s wand under, right?” he asked. “The one beside the socks here?

“Yeah. It was underneath there,” Hermione replied. “Why?” From the sound of her voice she had also realized that Ron wasn’t asking idly.

 _That’s it Ron. Come on…you can figure this out._

Harry tried to ignore the shivers that were racing across his spine as Ron continued to gently circle his thumb over the sock.

“Hand me my wand,” Ron said. “There, by the nightstand. Here, hand it here.”

“Why?” Hermione asked again but from the fact that he was shuffled from one hand to the other Harry could tell that she had done as he’d asked.

“Before he disappeared this morning, Harry was looking for a pair of socks.”

 _Now you've got it!_

“And?” Hermione prompted, clearly not making the connection.

“And he didn’t find any and yet…here’s a pair of socks right here.”

“And?” Hermione repeated.

“And, there’s a pair of cufflinks here, Hermione. What would you do if you couldn’t find a matching pair of socks and you happened to be reasonably decent with transfiguration?”

 _YES YES YES! COME ON RON! THAT’S IT! YOU’VE GOT IT!_

Harry momentarily forgot the conversation that he had overheard and the thrill of Ron’s fingers running over him in the excitement that he was about to be turned back into Harry.

“Are you saying that pair of socks is Harry?” The skepticism in Hermione’s voice was impossible to miss.

“Look at them, Hermione,” Ron said and Harry had the sudden sensation that he was flying through the air as Ron flung the socks toward Hermione. “Look, just there.”

“It’s just a spot where they’ve been darned,” Hermione responded, handing the socks back to Ron.

“You think it’s a coincidence that it looks exactly like a lightning bolt?”

“Harry’s scar,” Hermione said. Her voice was quiet but the skepticism was gone. “Well what are you waiting for?”

 _Yes, Ron. What exactly are you waiting for?_

Harry again felt himself swinging wildly through the air as Ron held the socks out in front of him and pointed his wand at them. “Finite incantato!” he said.

In the next instant Harry had the vaguely disconcerting feeling of gaining weight and dimension as he shifted back into himself. He landed on his knees on the floor and looked up to find Ron and Hermione staring at him, Ron’s wand still pointing at him.

“Took you two long enough to figure it out,” Harry said with a grin.

“HARRY!” was all the warning that Harry had before Hermione’s arms were around him and he had a face full of brown curls. He returned Hermione’s hug and gave her a kiss on the cheek before looking up to find Ron watching him, his expression unfathomable. Hermione gave him another squeeze then took a step backward, her gaze shifting back and forth between Ron and Harry.

Harry swallowed hard. He wanted to run over and throw his arms around Ron, to kiss him until he couldn’t breathe, to run his fingers all over him and explore absolutely every last inch of Ron’s body like he had fantasized about so many times. Like Ron had unknowingly done when Harry was a pair of socks. But he couldn’t.

Ron didn’t know that Harry had overheard the conversation and he had no idea if he had misinterpreted the conversation that he’d heard. And even if he hadn’t it was still entirely possible that feelings or otherwise, Ron wasn’t interested in the slightest in exploring whatever this thing between them may be. Or if he’d been dreaming. Or any one of a hundred more scenarios that didn’t end with the two of them living happily ever after. So instead he held out his hand and smiled. Ron took it and then pulled him forward into a hug. Harry closed his eyes and breathed in Ron’s scent, savored the way his arms felt around him and the tickle of Ron’s hair against his cheek. “Harry,” Ron said, voice breathless.

“Ron,” Harry replied. He swallowed again. “Nice catch on the socks.”

Ron laughed slightly and released Harry from the hug, but didn’t let go of his hands. Harry stared down at the place where Ron’s lightly freckled fingers rested against his own darker skin. When at last he met Ron’s eyes again, he allowed himself a moment to revel in the realization that he hadn’t misunderstood Ron’s earlier words at all.

“I’ll go call the ministry and let them know you’re okay,” Hermione said with a little smirk, walking into the hallway. “You two really need to talk.”


End file.
